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I hate when I agree with Ginsburg

That's nothing. You're agreeing with the ACLU.

Heheh. :) How many times do you think Scalia as believed one thing, the ACLU believed the opposite, and FReepers overwhelmingly sided with the Anti Christian Leftists Union?

I don't agree with the ACLU or Ginsburg. I see the ACLU's point (ouch, that hurt), but the court made better points. If Caballes had been forced to wait while a dog was brought in he would have been detained illegally. If the traffic violation had been bogus he would have been detained illegally. But the stop was legit... and if Caballes hadn't posessed any marijuana the cops would not have invaded his privacy.

It's easy to make the slippery slope argument and imagine hidden cameras in our bedrooms... but we don't hate that idea because of all the illegal things we could otherwise be doing in our bedrooms... We hate the idea of the government intruding in all the legal but private things we might do there. The court addressed this. "The legitimate expectation that information about perfectly lawful activity will remain private is categorically distinguishable from respondant's hopes or expectations concerning the nondetection of contraband in the trunk of his car. A dog sniff conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to posess does not violate the Fourth Amendment."

But let this be a lesson to you all. When transporting massive quantities of an illegal substance, obey the traffic laws. ;-)

But the stop was legit... and if Caballes hadn't posessed any marijuana the cops would not have invaded his privacy.

Do you know the false positive rate of sniff searches?

If Caballes had been forced to wait while a dog was brought in he would have been detained illegally

I've had to wait as much as 4 hours just to have a driver's license check (there were hundreds of cars in front of me) at a routine roadblock. After the second time, I started listening to the radio stations that give traffic reports. To be fair, the usual stop was only about 2 hrs; 4 hours was during the rush hour.

"if Caballes hadn't posessed any marijuana the cops would not have invaded his privacy."

Which translates to: People who do bad things don't deserve and do not have rights.

Unfortunately for the SCOTUS - the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and their own precedent (Miranda v Arizona), all say exactly the opposite.

"If Caballes had been forced to wait while a dog was brought in he would have been detained illegally."

Which basically goes to say that if you're detained for any lawful reason, the police have a right to run a train on you to dig up any possible reason they can to arrest or detain you further. Considering the ridiculously low standards for stopping people and detaining them (Terry stops come to mind), this is essentially an open door to police having every right to stop anyone they please on the street to interrogate, probe, scan, sniff, and/or use other criminal activity detection techniques in an effort to jail the citizen. Now I understand that the vast majority of police officers have no intention or reason to use any of that power, but power does indeed corrupt. I'm sure every cop who's spent more than a month on the force has run into a person they could just swear is up to no good, but who's untouchable because there's no obvious sign of wrongdoing. Rulings like this give the police the opportunity to put someone through Hell on a hunch. Though their intentions may be as pure as snow, the result is the same.

""The legitimate expectation that information about perfectly lawful activity will remain private is categorically distinguishable from respondant's hopes or expectations concerning the nondetection of contraband in the trunk of his car. A dog sniff conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to posess does not violate the Fourth Amendment.""

Which can be used as an argument against the 5th Amendment as well. So long as your confession is the only thing beaten out of you, as opposed to your grocery list, any interrogation is a-ok. The criminal does have the right to privacy, even when that privacy may end up concealing his criminal activities. That's not a popular position to take with the law enforcement folks because it makes their job harder. Oh well - want an easier job? Apply for work in China or North Korea where citizens' rights are a locker room joke.

"When transporting massive quantities of an illegal substance, obey the traffic laws."

Always amusing to watch Cops and see these idiots roll through a stop sign while carrying a gram of meth and a couple illegal weapons.